The date in the case

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Miss Bell opened the Meridian's log beneath the reading-room lamp. Between observations of the wind and sea stood the words, “First sight of land, 17 August, at dawn.” The brass plate in the museum stated, “The Meridian first sighted land on 18 August.” Both records referred to the same voyage and the same distant headland. Before the display reopened, the trustees expected Miss Bell to replace one date. Their chairman observed that two dates would make the museum appear less learned than one.

At first, the log seemed to deserve obedience. Its salt-stiffened pages formed an unbroken sequence, and the disputed entry was written in the same steady hand as the notes surrounding it. On the first leaf, however, the captain had instructed that each ship's day should be reckoned from noon. Under that system, a dawn which townspeople called the eighteenth might still belong to the ship's seventeenth. Yet three nights before the sighting, after a storm had damaged the ship's clock, the clerk had drawn a line at midnight and begun a new date. He had not done so on the following nights. Miss Bell could not decide whether this marked one exceptional night or a change of practice.

Other records offered support without settlement. A newspaper printed on the nineteenth announced that the land had been seen “yesterday morning”, but its editor had received the report in an unsigned message from the harbour. Mr Price brought his grandfather's diary, which gave the seventeenth and described the headland emerging from mist. He admitted, when Miss Bell noticed the unusually even writing, that his grandfather had copied his rough notes into the book after returning home. The chairman preferred the log because it had been kept on deck. Mr Price trusted the diary because its author had witnessed the sighting. Each man spoke as though the weakness in the other record were enough to strengthen his own.

Miss Bell finally placed a facsimile of the log entry beside the unchanged brass plate. She added the origins of both records but named neither date as correct. When the doors opened, a gentleman read the plate and began to move on. His daughter examined the facsimile, caught his sleeve and drew him back. “It says the seventeenth,” she whispered. The gentleman looked from one date to the other and then towards Miss Bell, who had no answer prepared for him. The chairman lifted his hand towards the facsimile as if he meant to remove it, but lowered it when two more visitors approached. Soon several voices were arguing quietly before the case. Behind the glass, the polished brass and the stained paper caught the same light.

“In this extract, Miss Bell is right to leave visitors with two dates rather than one.”

Evaluate how successfully the writer presents this view. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.